1In 1966, Paul Huard, a proven expert on Saharan rock engravings, published together with a certain Lieutenant Léonardi (Huard – Lt. Léonardi 1966) an article entitled ‘Nouvelles gravures rupestres des chasseurs du Fezzan méridional, du Djado et du Tibesti’. In this article, among others, six ‘new’ – i.e. still undiscovered by ‘Western’ science – rock art sites are presented. One of them is called ‘ Bénigué ’ (northern Tibesti ). This site was explored by Léonardi; apparently Huard did not see it with his own eyes. In about half a page, the two authors give the inventory of the site. There, they mention ‘an engraved archer, strongly patinated, with the profile of a bird’s conical beak, with, apparently, a small crest’[1] (Huard – Lt. Léonardi 1966: 150). In addition to sketches of the fauna depicted in ‘Bénigué’, a small, highly schematized and not detailed sketch of the archer is reproduced in the article.

2The little attention that the authors gave to this archer is surprising. Because, in reality, it is an almost man-sized representation of a human being, and this hardly 10 km away from the large and very well-known rock art site of Gonoa, discovered by G. Nachtigal in 1869 (cf. Staewen – Striedter 1987), where an almost two-meter-high human being is depicted – the world famous ‘Man of Gonoa’. Since such large representations of humans are rare in the Tibesti[2], these two engravings in close proximity to each other are almost sensational.

3In March 2021, my ethnographic work[3] took me for a day to ‘Bénigué’, which, correctly transcribed, is called Bunige. I did not know Huard and Leonardi’s article at that time. I was therefore surprised to come across the rock engravings. As usual in such cases, I photographed them, although the day, with its extremely dust-covered sky, was not very suitable for such an undertaking. Since this visit was not planned as archaeological research, the engravings could not be examined and measured more extensively.[4]

4Bunige deserves the attention of experts because of the large depiction of the archer and also because of the relatively large number of enigmatic round depictions engraved on the boulders scattered on the site. In this article, I will suppose that the archer represents a hunter, and that the round depictions represent traps. Due to its abundance of water, Bunige, indeed, may have attracted wild animals and therefore may have been of particular interest to hunters. Therefore, the aim of my contribution is not only to trace the context of hunting through the sole symbolism of the engravings, but to relate the latter to their particular environment. In so doing, I will highlight some topographical and geomorphological features of Bunige and give, at the same, basic ethnographic references to the Tubu who currently inhabit it.

5Bunige is barely 10 km in a W–NW direction from Gonoa, and 20 km in a W–SW direction from Bardai. The village is located next to a rock face in its west and lies on a low fluvial terrace, next to the base flow and streamflow beds of the enneri [5] Bunige (Fig. 2). This desert valley runs from south to north in the west of the enneri Gonoa and is part of the Bardage river system.

6The terrace on which the present village and its engravings are located is particularly protected from erosion because it is partially surrounded by a spur. This could also have been a protection against potential attackers for the inhabitants at former times. Meanwhile, probably due to the absence of floods, houses are even built on the former stream bed.

7The top layer of the rock face consists of ignimbrite, below which is a sandstone base. The sandstone as well as fissures in the ignimbrite could have a function as aquifer. At the time of the engravers of Bunige there may have been seeps and springs here. Still today the place is very rich in water, which is also indicated by its name: ‘Buni-ge’ means ‘by the well’ in Tedaga, the language of the local Tubu Teda. The acacias (Acacia sp.) and tamarisk trees (Tamaris sp.) on today’s base flood bed, which prefer to grow in water veins, indicate permanent moisture (Fig. 2). Still in March 2021, local residents obtained water from simple small wells located in the enneri (Fig. 1).[6]

8Bunige’s approximately 85 engravings (most of them part of compositions) are engraved or pecked into about 17 faces of fallen ignimbrite blocks which are located along a rock face running from north to south with an adjacent scree (Fig. 2 + Fig. 3). They depict a large and a small archer, four elephants (Loxodonta africana), possibly a rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis), three animals whose horns resemble those of Barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia), and six undefinable animals. Forty-five engravings show either cattle or other bovids. In addition to these depictions of living beings, there are those of 24 round devices. One recent Arabic graffito, not counted here, is carved into an ignimbrite block next to cattle engravings. Because of the size of the engraving (about 1.5 m) and its proximity to the ‘Man of Gonoa’, Bunige’s large archer is particularly striking, although both figures are depicted in a very different style. The ‘Man of Bunige’ (Fig. 4 + Fig. 11), engraved with a rough, brought and deep pecked line and covered by a light to medium patina, is represented with protruding buttocks and a long, lateral phallus close to his right side. His head is small compared to the rest of his body, and his face tapers into a pointed ‘beak’. It is possible that this is a mask. The engraving of Bunige has the simple bow and the oversized representation of the phallus in common with human representations from other regions of the Sahara (cf. Dupuy 1989: 165). In contrast, the nearly 2 m high engraving of the ‘Man of Gonoa’ depicts with finely incised stroke a striding and probably masked man armed with a club (cf. Staewen – Striedter 1987: 40, 229).

9Many of Bunige’s cattle representations (Fig. 5, Fig. 6, Fig. 9, Fig. 10) are engraved with outlines only. In some cases, did the engraver attempt to depict the coat pattern as well, mostly by dots. Many cattle have lyre-shaped horns. 10 of the animals resembling cattle have horns curved forward in a peculiar way (Fig. 9 + Fig. 10). They might represent antelopes. However, their figures are very schematic, so that an identification may look difficult. With reference to their forward curved horns and in relation to hunting scenes and depictions of traps, I will show in the following that these animals could be waterbucks (Kobus ellipsiprymnus).

10The elephant depictions of Bunige are once a group of three animals lined up in a row and once the very damaged engraving of an elephant standing with its front legs – as if on a pedestal – on the neck of a bovine (Fig. 6). Another, smaller bovine is represented in the ‘belly’ of this (pregnant?) animal. The latter composition is engraved into the rock with a uniform rough, broad and deep pecked line, close to this one of the ‘Man of Bunige’. It is covered by a medium, partially even dark patina.

11About 24 devices represent round shapes divided by one or two parallel ‘diagonals’ (Fig. 7 + Fig. 8) and showing a light or medium patina. Some of these ‘diagonals’ continue outside the circle; some of them run out into a kind of noose. One of the circles is crossed by about a dozen parallel lines (Fig. 8). In two cases (Fig. 9 + Fig. 10), the ‘diagonals’ continue outside the circle in the direction of the legs of a bovid with forward-curved horns, and seem to connect with the former. If this bovid was cattle, one could assume that the round devices were tethering stones (cf. Pachur 1991). If, however, this bovid was an antelope, the stones could be a kind of ‘anchor’ to which traps have been attached (cf. Huard 1965; Huard – Leclant 1973). When I showed photos of the engravings to Mahadi Chaha, an elderly respected camel guide from the Emi Koussi region, and asked him what they may represent, he spontaneously replied: ‘des pièges’ (‘traps’) and did not mention devices to tether livestock.[7]

12In the case of traps, the rope tied to the stone may have ended in a noose, which could have been combined with a so-called ‘spiked-wheel trap’ (cf. Lindblom 1928: 4; Riemer 2009: 182–185). As argue Gallinaro and di Lernia (Gallinaro – di Lernia 2018), ‘tethering’ stones may have served as a multifunctional device in different periods of the Pastoral Neolithic. First, they may have ‘made and used as hunting devices (…) and then further modified and changed for other important purposes, such as the tethering of domestic cattle and small livestock’ (p. 17). This long period of use could provide an explanation for why the round objects shown here are covered with different patinas. Some of the round objects could represent the traps themselves and not the stones the former have been tied to – the first object on the left in Fig. 8 might be a trap in which the animal gets caught with its foot.

13As mentioned above, the figures of Bunige are engraved in the rock with lines of various depth and they show different patinas from light to dark. Fig. 9 may serve as an example of differences in the intensity of the patina: The small archer and the Barbary sheep in the higher part of the surface have both a light patina, as has also one of the two Barbary sheep to the right of the picture’s center. The waterbuck caught in the trap in the left part of the surface has also a light patina. These figures might be enough recent. The waterbucks on the right in the lower part of the surface with their medium patina might be older (in this part, the number of the subjects is probably underestimated, as the visibility is very scarce).

14Possibly, the different patinas and styles characterize 2 or more distinct groups of petroglyphs executed in different phases. Thus, the depiction of the ‘Man of Bunige’ (Fig. 4) and the elephant (Fig. 6), with their deep, broad and rough pecked line and a patina that ranges from light to medium for the archer and from medium to dark for the elephant, could be assigned to one group. In the case of the figures engraved with a rather superficial and finer line (e.g. Fig. 9 + Fig. 10), there could be an older and a younger group. The latter would include the representations of the Barbary sheep, which, in contrast to the cattle, is indeed still found in the Tibesti today.[8]

15The archer of Bunige is likely to represent a hunter. Two observations allow me to make this assumption. First, the smaller of the two human representations from Bunige – also an archer – aims at a Barbary sheep (Fig. 9). Second – and much more important – there is a very similar, although with 0.5 m significantly smaller representation of a human from Gonoa: This one seems to aim with a bow-like object at the neck of an antelope (Fig. 11). This human is also shown with a prominent phallus and a protruding buttock; his face tapers similarly into a pointed ‘beak’. The antelope, like some of Bunige’s bovids, has prominent forward-curved horns. If the archer of Bunige represents a hunter, one can assume that hunting was very important for the inhabitants of this place. Why else would a hunter have been portrayed so prominently in this size?

16Certainly, one could argue that the large number of bovids depicted in Bunige, 35 of which can be identified with certainty as cattle, contradicts the last assumption made. However, hunting and cattle husbandry have been complementary forms of prehistoric economic activity. In reference to the Adrar des Iforas engravings in present-day Mali, Dupuy writes that the naturalistic rock art can be attributed to a society of cattle and sheep herders ‘who lived next to a Sudanese fauna to which they attached a certain symbolism and which they undoubtedly used to acquire proteins; the shepherd becoming in the circumstance hunter’ (Dupuy 1989: 169). In this context, one can read from the engraving where an elephant places its front legs on the neck of a cow (Fig. 6), if not complementarity, then at least contemporaneousness – even if the meaning of this engraving cannot be explained, both cattle and elephant must have been depicted at the same time, because the group is uniformly engraved in the ignimbrite with a broad, deep and roughly pecked line and in a naturalistic style.[9]

17If we now take the importance of hunting for the inhabitants of Bunige as given, then the round devices could be explained as traps. In this context, special attention deserves the bovid with the forward curved horns, which seems to be caught in such traps in two separate scenes (Fig. 9 + Fig. 10). If these traps were tethering stones, the following question would arise: Why are only cattle with forward curved horns tethered to such stones, while the large number of 35 cattle depicted in other ways seem to have nothing to do with them? As with the above mentioned engraving of the archer and the antelope from Gonoa (Fig. 11), the bovids with forward curved horns must thus be hunting game.

18Which antelope species could be depicted here? Among today’s African antelopes, the waterbuck has characteristically forward-curved horns which stand out in particular when viewed in profile. The waterbuck is ‘a water-dependent species partial to scattered woodland and bush’ and occurs in present-day Africa in areas where mean annual precipitation is between 400 mm and 1600 mm (Kingdon – Hoffmann 2013: 463). Places, such as the enneri Bunige, where there was always enough water, and its bordering areas could have represented a refuge for the waterbuck and other game in environments that became increasingly drier.

19The waterbuck, as also the elephant[10] and other species, might have been hunted at Bunige with traps as depicted in the engravings. According to Lindblom (Lindblom 1928: 4), spiked wheel-traps were primarily used to catch antelope. However, in Uganda and along the White Nile, they were also used to catch larger game, such as elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, and buffaloes (Lindblom 1928). Usually, several traps were set at the same time (which may explain the large number of 24 engravings of these traps) at places often frequented by game, such as paths or watering holes (Lindblom 1928). The water-rich Bunige may have been particularly suitable for trapping game animals that came to water.

20When looking at the numerical ratios of depictions, then the representations of cattle seem to dominate (35 engravings). However, when adding up all engravings related presumably to hunting (24 representations of traps, 4 of elephants, 3 of wild sheep, 2 of archers, 10 of waterbucks, and 1 possibly of a rhinoceros), then the latter dominate with 44 depictions. This would relativize the importance of cattle husbandry for Bunige’s inhabitants.[11]

21In this article I have given details of the the rock-art site of Bunige and presented the latter as embedded in its particular water-rich environment. With reference to hunting, I have tried to contribute some elements to the explanation of the engravings. Because of its size and its spatial proximity to Gonoa, the ‘Man of Bunige’ seems to give the rock-art site a special significance. If, as assumed, the ‘Man of Bunige’ represents a hunter, then one can deduce that hunting had a particularly important economic or symbolic role among the inhabitants of the place. Why else would they have depicted a hunter so prominently? The big number of engravings that could refer to a context of hunting – including in particular the big number of traps – also supports this assumption.

22The proximity of the rock-art sites of Bunige and Gonoa, the fact that there is a large representation of a human at both, and the parallels between the ‘Man of Bunige’ and a smaller hunter representation from Gonoa, raise the question of how the two sites and their inhabitants were related. The relatively small site of Bunige may have been frequented at a moment when hunting was significant or regaining importance as a source of protein. Perhaps the water-rich Bunige – well protected by the mountain spur but too small for a larger settlement – was an outpost of Gonoa where cattle pastoralism still predominated. At Bunige, undisturbed by the life of a larger settlement, it was possible to hunt the game that came to water. However, about the actual relations in which the ‘Man of Bunige’ stood with his neighbor from Gonoa, can only be speculated today.

23GPS coordinates: 21°19´25´´ N, 16°48´12´´ E

24My thanks go to the inhabitants of Bunige, who welcomed me in their village, to Mahadi Chaha (Faya), and to the geographers Barbara Sponholz and Erhard Schulz (Würzburg) for their comments on geology. Thanks also to the Gerda Henkel Stiftung for funding my fieldwork since 2018.

This article presents engravings from the rock art site of Bunige in the northern Tibesti (Republic of Chad). Bunige is located barely 10 km from the rock art site of Gonoa and, apart from a brief mention in a French article from 1966, does not seem to have been explored in any detail. However, Bunige deserves the attention of experts because of its large depiction of an archer and also because of the relatively large number of enigmatic circular objects engraved on the rocks scattered over the site. This article assumes that the archer represents a hunter and the round objects represent traps. Because of its abundance of water, Bunige may have attracted wild animals and therefore have been of particular interest to hunters. The aim of this paper is therefore not only to trace the context of hunting through the symbolism of the engravings, but also to place the latter in direct relation to their environment. In doing so, some topographical and geomorphological features of Bunige will be highlighted, and basic ethnographic references will be made to the Tubu who inhabit the area today.